The atmosphere in the Bulls locker room was anything but ecstatic after their 111-94 victory over the Sacramento Kings last Saturday. Throughout the first half of the season, the Bulls prided themselves on being a well-coached and efficient team, but they were now so out of sync that not even a 17-point win could hide it. Over in the corner, B.J. Armstrong was almost despondent, even after scoring 16 points. “I think for the guys who’ve been here five years this is–not to sound spoiled–this is a situation many of us haven’t been in before,” he said. “The coaches are just as competitive as we are. We’re frustrated about where we’re at. They’re frustrated, I’m sure. They want to win just as badly as we want to win. They’re trying to get things together with the team as much as we’re trying to get things together with ourselves.”
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Sure, the Bulls were suffering from a string of injuries–Bill Cartwright and John Paxson were both on the injured list, Horace Grant had missed several games with back spasms, and Toni Kukoc had been in and out with a sprained ankle and back spasms of his own–but the result of this rough stretch was a crisis in confidence.
All through the first half of the season, the Bulls established themselves as a team able to get the open shot and knock it down. Their selfless play and fluid passing made instant stars of Bill Wennington and Steve Kerr, journeymen who proved themselves capable of making 15- to 20-footers–if they were left unmolested. Yet when the Bulls were winning in December and January, there was no guarantee they’d get the same shots and continue to make them in March and April, after teams began rounding into playoff shape and contesting every shot on defense. When the inevitable bad stretch happened, the question was whether the Bulls had forgotten what they’d been doing right or the league had simply caught up with them.
On one such occasion the ball went in low to Kukoc. Pippen, coming from the other side, cut around a Kerr screen at the top of the key. Kukoc delivered the pass and Pippen knocked down the open 21-foot shot with the ease of a fast-break slam dunk. It was just like the Bulls had been doing the first half of the season. The Bulls led 48-47 at intermission.
“I know when I shoot well we seem to play well,” Armstrong said. “When I shoot well I give the guys spacing–I give Scottie spacing, I give the guys in the post spacing.” That’s because Armstrong’s defender can’t poach on other players. Still, Armstrong said this with a shrug, uncomfortable with the idea of being the team’s catalyst, perhaps because–like a true catalyst–he has a passive role in the reaction. With Pippen running the offense from the forward position, Armstrong is expected to park himself in an accessible spot and wait for the defense to forget he’s there. Opposing defenses, in the weeks leading up to those two games with the Hawks, had been determined to chafe the Bulls at what the New York Knicks’ coach Pat Riley once called the “pinch points” in the Bulls’ offense, but otherwise to play them straight up, man to man, no open shots allowed.
Still, with Pippen dominating the game, the Bulls’ offense was prone to fits and starts. Jackson seemed to realize that, saying, “We’re not out of the woods yet” after the game.
